Swamp Thing

Hike-Ku for Skug River Loop
Dirty muddy pup
Rascal, the Swamp Thing, rises
From the marsh she came

Another perfect day. The weather gods are making up for their excesses of rain last May, June and July with the most marvelous stretch of weather. We've had another great day for hiking. I worked this morning into the mid afternoon, but with several hours of daylight left and warm temperatures, a hike was too good to pass up. It's a lot easier to motivate ourselves outside when the weather is so temperate. Cold, ice and snow will be with us soon enough, so we (SHOULD because we CAN) walk in the woods. Today it wasn't as much woods as swamp. This is another local hike - short, only a little over three miles (although we added more mileage retracing our steps at various points along the way) What I love about wetlands hiking this time of year is the early foliage changes that are so stunning, when the deeper woods around here are green. This particular trail goes over boardwalk through an extensive wetland with lots of standing water and algae and bird life. Then into the woods with the requisite granite and glacial erratics. Although I really like the concept of the 60 hikes in 60 miles in 60 months - the author of the book is annoyingly lyrical. Although trail pedagogy is not a bad thing, what we most need are clear and concise directions. The author has failed at both of these requisites for hiking guides, and we are already adding major mileage to the hikes because there's a lot of backtracking and doubling up as we second guess ourselves. And then to make it perfect, the dog decided to wade into the nastiest, smelliest, blackest muck lying off the boardwalk. Swamp thing. It's only cute until she sits on my lap. Then she just reeks. I considered a call to the groomer, but since James is coming for an autumn visit I figure I might want to hold off in case he introduces her to the local skunks like he did last year at about this time. I can stop complaining. Skunk up close and personal certainly puts swamp reek into perspective.